Scottish Court of Session Decisions

3. If the revenue of the river is adopted as the test for ascertaining the annual value of the quays in the harbour, only the revenue earned within the parish of Govan should be taken into account. But even if the whole revenue earned within the high stage should be taken, the amount is £66,666; and from this should be deducted, according to the assessor's own principle, one-half as the revenue of the waterway, the remainder—viz., £33, 334—being considered as the gross valuation of the quays and wharves in the harbour, subject to deduction of expenses, and amounting to about £9172; and to a further deduction of 20 per cent. for tenants' profits, leaving a sum of about £19,801 to represent the total valuation of the quays. The total length of the quays being 4359 yards, that of Mavisbank Quay being 54 yards, £2480 would be the proportion payable as its annual value.

4. If this mode of valuation be not adopted, the appellants are willing to concur in a rent at the same rate per mile for the third stage, as is admitted to have been fixed by the Legislature for the second stage. That stage is but 3 1 8 miles in length, and yet by statute as large a proportion of the dues is leviable in it as in the lower stage of ten miles. The reason is obvious. The further up the more costly has the river been to deepen and improve. Then if one-sixth of the dues has been appropriated to the middle stage of 3 1 8 miles as the river rent, a still higher proportion requires to be apportioned as the rent of the upper stage, which is 5 3 8 miles, and has cost ten times more to deepen and improve than the middle stage. The appellants, however, offer to take it in this way—If 3 1 8 miles give £16,666 for river rent, 5 3 8 miles will give £28,666; and this sum deducted from £66,666, the gross revenue in the first stage, leaves £38,000, instead of £50,000, as brought out by the assessor, which is £4667, more than the half of the gross revenue in the first stage.

5. Further, in determining what is a proper deductional allowance for the waterway, the extensive nature of the operations of widening, deepening, and improving the river and harbour must be kept in view. These, including the purchase of land thrown into the waterway, have involved an expenditure of considerably upwards of £1,000,000 sterling, while the cost of the works in the harbour liable to assessment has not exceeded one-half of that sum, notwithstanding that many of them have been more than once entirely renewed. A rent for the waterway, based on these proportions, would bring out a result almost similar to that proposed by the appellants.

6. By the assessor's method the extraordinary result is brought out of the trustees being liable to have the same valuation put upon their property in any one of all the parishes through which the river passes; for as the gross valuation has no reference to the extent of quayage, but would apply to 4 yards equally as to 4000, the assessor in any one parish, where a quay or landing-place is situated, however small, would be entitled to value it precisely in the same way as the assessor has done in the present case. Had there been only the Mavisbank Quay in the harbour of Glasgow, the assessor would have concentrated the entire gross rental upon it. The rental could not have been increased, although the river had been lined with quays along its whole length.

7. In the event of the dues on vessels or goods being adopted as a criterion or data for ascertaining the rent of the quays, &c., the appellants claimed that the cost of dredging the harbour and along the quays should be deducted from such rent, as an expense necessarily incurred from day to day to keep a way open to the quays which would, unless continuously dredged, very soon be inaccessible for vessels. This cost should be deducted (1) whether it is to be held as part of the necessary expense of a tenant in keeping clear the way to the subjects let, and the amount of which he would take into consideration in fixing his rent; or (2) whether it is to be held as a charge upon the river and waterway of the harbour, in which case an extra proportion of the dues would fall to be allocated on the river, to compensate the expense of dredging the harbour. This claim should be allowed either by the Valuation Court or by the parochial boards, but both have refused to make the deduction—each deciding that it falls to be dealt with by the other. The cost under this head is upwards of £10,000 per annum.

To these arguments it was stated, for the assessor, in the case prepared for the opinion of their Lordships, that in proceeding to estimate the annual value of such subjects as the quays and wharves belonging to the Clyde Trustees, which are situated in different parishes, he could only, as in the case of a gas or water company, deal with the subjects in cumulo, and having ascertained the nett value of the whole, apportion the amount according to the length of quay in each parish. With regard to the objections offered to the mode of valuation followed by him, the assessor contended that the plan of dividing the river into stages appeared to have been adopted with the view of enabling the trustees to levy rates on vessels entering the lower stages of the river, for the purpose of proceeding to the harbours of Dumbarton, Bowling, or Renfrew; that the revenue with which he had dealt was that derived solely from vessels which had entered the harbour, and made use of the quays, &c., belonging to the Clyde Trustees; that he was justified in so doing, as the quays must be looked upon as the producing subject, but inasmuch as the harbour and quays, without the river as a means of access, would be of as little value as would the river even in its present state were there neither harbour nor quays to which vessels could come, and as the trustees themselves do not undertake to separate the dues, and show what amount is paid for the use of the quays, and what for the use of the river and harbour waterway, he considers that in allocating the revenue as applicable in like proportion to each, he has done what is both fair and reasonable, unless the trustees can prove that the sum allocated is insufficient to maintain the river and harbour waterway in their present state.

Their Lordships without deciding either way remitted to the commissioners to make further inquiries.